atc » Games

Battlefield Bad Company 2 (Xbox 360) first impressions

atc — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:57:55 +0000

Some initial thoughts halfway through my most anticipated sequel this year…

The story’s poor. What am I doing really? You find this guy, now this guy, oh here’s something different: find this place! Whilst you’re doing that random people will pop up like something out of Time Crisis 2 and try and kill you. Oh and to do all that you go through a million different checkpoints. That’s what MW2 did and it f-cking sucks. It feels really scripted to me and I hate it for that. The ‘level’ interaction seems unfinished. For instance when you run into the castle-esque areas on the desert map (de targo or something?) you affectively initiate a mission or new sub-story sequence that ends in a boss (i.e. a f-cking great big Apache helicopter). Once you’re done, the screen fades to black, you see a random cinematic sequence where Haggard says something odd or funny, and suddenly you’re outside with your vehicle and squad (which, by the way, are popping into view from top to bottom like something out of a tech demo). Christ.

Oh, and that annoying bug with the loading screen: you’re reading the tip text then it fades to black. You think “great, the level’s starting” and suddenly the text’s back and you’re loading again. Huh?

The action is outstanding, second to none. The gadgets, guns and vehicles are much better than before; they feel more realistic and reactive. The destructive environment is also an improvement on the first (which wasn’t bad in the first place!). The textures look amazing and the game looks ever-so realistic. The Brazilian jungle was actually beautiful.

It’s a good, fun game, but the thing that made the first Bad Company instalment so good was its open-ended gameplay and well-polished storytelling, both of which have taken a back seat in #2 to do what seems like its competitor does: all looks and no substance. Grr!

That said, I’ve yet to play multiplayer which is where Bad Company 1 really got going.

Xbox Live home network port forwarding

atc — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:15:40 +0000

I’ve moved house and being nowhere near the router that connects us to the net, I had to purchase an Xbox Wireless Adapter (rip-off!). Once it was setup, I had to test the network connection. For some reason UPnP wasn’t working even when enabled on the Linksys WRT54GR, so I had to set up port forwarding. The ports needed by Xbox Live are as follows:

TCP 80
UDP 88
TCP & UDP 3074
TCP & UDP 53

I found those details on the official knowledge base article found here. Hope that helps!

Xbox 360 freezing on logo

atc — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:14:32 +0000

My Xbox 360 kept freezing on the startup logo until I eventually turned it off and then on by hitting the DVD-tray open button. This probably indicates that the DVD drive is defective or on its way out – meh. Warranty here I come!

Gears of War (Xbox 360) Is Awesome, but..

atc — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:04:18 +0000

So I got Gears of War 2 on Friday for my Xbox 360. It’s an astonishing game: the graphics are second to none, the animation is very realistic, and the intensity of some of the gameplay is just awesome. The online play is also very well done. You get your regular deathmatch, but what’s brilliant about this GOW release is that there’s also cooperative play. You can go through the campaign/story side of the game with a mate, or team up with 4 of your friends and take wave after wave of Horde monsters on for up to 50 levels. It’s intense and a lot of fun.

I’m not sure what demographic it’s pandering to, because although the game’s very impressive and it’s got a huge fanbase, it is all very scripted. There’s no open-ended outcome. You’re just going through the motions, doing as you’re told. You have no real affect on the overall outcome. Perhaps I’ve been playing too much Fallout 3 for my opinion to remain neutral. It does feel however that some parts just don’t require any thought whatsoever. You can’t play intelligently or manipulate your environment to better your situation. That said though, it’s still very fun.

The longevity of the game comes from its online offerings. The co-op and deathmatch side of things cannot be knocked, and I hope to see online co-op play emerge in other games too.